Not to Redeem
by KatxValentine
Summary: -Set during the Faith arc in Season One- Faith couldn't turn herself in, at heart she wasn't anything more than a child. This world was too big for her. Angel knows what it's like, to be the monster, to want to take it back. Can he reform her?
1. Can't

I shouldn't be writing this. I should be listening to my history professor drone for no apparent reason. It's so dull, though, and I figured in light and celebration of my new tattoo (Faith's slayer brand on her upper arm, I finally had the nerve to get it) I'd write me some questionably implied slash and, as confusing as this is, het, too. Couplings are Faith/Buffy, Faith/Angel, Buffy/Angel and hell only knows what else. Mind you, I'm just rambling.

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He didn't know why he believed her. She'd looked at him, though, her warm brown eyes wide, her full lips pouting, and she'd said, "I-I can't do this, Angel."

She shivered when he touched her, gently, and he pulled her into a hug. She didn't fight it, but she crumpled and folded herself into his embrace. Her hands were fisting into his shirt. He'd never noticed how small she was before. She was smaller than Buffy. She was so different, too. When Buffy cried, he would admit, she retained some degree of self—she didn't fall apart like Faith did, like a shattered mirror whose pieces were not the mirror at all, something entirely more lost. It was the saddest thing he had ever seen.

He took her in a little deeper, let his hands entwine in her soft, brown hair. Everything about her was different, so different—Buffy didn't need him. Faith did. He saw this in her indecision, in her blatant fear, in the way she flinched and whimpered each time his fingers grazed her skin.

He couldn't let her go like this.

"You don't have to." He murmured, his chin tucked atop her head. His own expression was unreadable, and he could feel her heart beating inside his own cold kettledrum of a chest. She was shaking; he couldn't condemn her to this. She wasn't more than a child.

"Get me outta here." She whined, grasping his leather jacket like it was the last lifeline she had left. She knew Buffy would be angry with this, but hadn't Buffy ever been lost? No. Perfect Buffy Anne Summers didn't _get_ lost, perfect Buffy Anne Summers always followed the Chosen path, did what a Chosen was supposed to do. Faith hadn't been Chosen, she had been forced, she knew this much. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against his chest, seeking a comforting heartbeat with those Slayer senses of hers, those Chosen senses, and when she found none she remembered you could almost never rely on the kindness of strangers, "Please."

He only nodded. He couldn't leave someone like this to be fixed by the law. This was too delicate a problem for that. He lightly pushed her at the shoulder and dropped his head in the direction of the window, "Go to my apartment and stay there."


	2. Parental

So I don't even know where these pairings are going anymore, they're kind of branching out wherever they so please so I'm just going to let them go. This chapter's heavy on the connotations between Faith and Buffy (which I ship like a beast) and I'll be discussing Faith and Angel because it might be where this fix is going. Anyway, I don't own anything, onward!

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Faith's biggest argument with Buffy stood solidly on the grounds of a single idea; Buffy's effervescent need to be blameless. Nothing, she swore, nothing made her angrier. No matter what dirty feats of bad she committed, the blonde Slayer was adamant about being shiny, good Buffy Summers. And what made her so much better than the beasts she shoved a stake in? They were both alike as freaks, powerful things that could never fit in. Buffy was too stubborn, too self-righteous and much too proud to willfully accept this. All of these reasons were why Buffy Anne Summers bluntly refused to admit the games she'd played with Faith Lehane's heart.

Faith's road of everlasting pride stopped right at Buffy's feet. She'd knelt there in reverence, worshipped. She'd found in B a sister, a friend and maybe a hint of a love she had never had before. She hoped strangely and without reserve. She daydreamed, she cuddled, things Faith seldom or never did. And in the end she'd been nothing but used.

In turn, Buffy found in Faith something Buffy never thought she could find. It was kinship, someone who shared a destiny and a burden heavier than the world itself. All of those feelings were dropped on the Dark Slayer; the sensations of loneliness, the hatred of fate, the outright distaste for what had been handed to them both. In a sense they were both running; Faith from a duty larger than herself and Buffy from a self she saw in Faith.

And all of these things were why, as Faith lay in Angel's cushy, oversized bed, she did nothing but think as she listened. The two were yelling outside the door. It felt almost like having parents, if she'd known what that was like.

"So what, you're just gonna let her go because she cried a little? She's not stable, Angel, she's a wanted murderer. She's not the charity case you want to take so bad. She's the wrong person to trust." The extent of hostility in Buffy's tone sunk Faith lower into the covers. She felt and seemed almost guilty, curled her fingers around the comforter, wrapped herself in the absence of scent that was Angel. She wanted to disappear. She wanted to never be whole again. How was this supposed to happen? It was absurd. She needed to be forgiven, she _needed_ it.

"And who are you to tell me who's trustworthy and who isn't? You think you can just decide to storm back into my life and make my choices? Not how it works, Buffy. She made a mistake, she knows it, and she wants to make up for it." If she shut her eyes she could imagine what they both looked like, entangled as they were in this unimaginable dispute. Buffy would pout and her brow would furrow, harsh, and Angel's face would be lax, open, wanting yet also trying so hard to let go. She loved both of them in ways she could not openly describe, but maybe love wasn't enough and maybe she wasn't even sure what it meant. She missed Buffy before everything, terribly, the Buffy who kissed her bruises better. The Buffy whose boyfriend she hadn't quite openly fucked. It sat like a stone in her stomach, now, the unfamiliar bitterness of guilt.

"She's not you. She's never going to be _you_. She _has_ a soul and she still did this. What's her excuse?" She flinched visibly, diving deeper. She wished she could kill herself but Angel would know, he always would. Maybe that would be a solution. Just suffocate, strangle, and fade into thin air. She'd be the greatest vanishing act in LA.

_Fuckin' ironic_, she thought with a tinge of resentment, _went from homocidal to suicidal in two damn days._

She contemplated endlessly on the concept of a razor blade, but relief in pain wasn't ever what suited her and she didn't comprehend seeking solace in it. If she were going to hurt herself, it would have to be death she was provoking, not feeling. Feeling she was suddenly overwhelmed with, the hell she needed to bring more of it.

When the door slammed she slipped her head underneath the pillow and exhaled. She felt weightless for the strangest moment, lightheaded when she closed her eyes. It was a relief in a very small way. She assumed she'd made her own personal burrow, a perfect hole to hide in, and when she let her muscles go slack she let sleep take her. It was less a slumber and more a void.


End file.
